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The Jones Act is a federal statute found at 46 USC ?30104 (formally 48 United States Code ? 688) which allows an injured maritime worker to file a tort type lawsuit against his employer. In order to qualify under the Jones Act, the employee must meet the definition of a seaman. Once the employee’s claim is determined to fall under the Jones Act, the employee is then entitled to recover several different types of damages from his employer.

Before addressing the specific categories of damages which are allowed under the Jones Act, it is first important to understand two basic facts about the Jones Act. First, the Jones Act is a fault-based statute which means that in order to collect any type of damage against your employer, you must prove that your employer was at fault in causing or contributing to your injury or that the vessel was unseaworthy which caused or contributed to your injury. Under the Jones Act you do not collect any damages unless there was some degree of fault on the part of your employer in any form or fashion in causing your injury. Also, the damages that you can collect under the Jones Act are separate and apart from the damages you can collect under general maritime law for “maintenance and cure”. Even if your employer was not at fault in causing your injury, you are still entitled to maintenance and cure benefits under general maritime law.

The Jones Act allows an injured employee to recover general damages including pain and suffering and emotional damages. Typically there is no set scale or limitation on the amount of general damages that the employee can recover. However, almost all courts will enforce a jurisdictional scale on the amount that can be recovered for general damages relating to the particular injury suffered by the employee. Most damage Awards which are received through a formal trial rather than settlement can be reviewed by the trial judge or appellate court to determine if the Award is inadequate or excessive. Therefore although there is no formal limitation on the amount that can be awarded for general damages, as a practical matter the injured employee’s Award may be reviewed and lowered or increased if it is excessive or inadequate.

The second category of damages which an injured seaman can collect under the Jones Act is for lost wages. This includes both past lost wages from the time of his injury through his trial date as well as future lost wages which he may incur in the future after his trial date. generally this is a comparison of the amount the employee was earning at the time of his injury compared to the amount that he would be limited to earning in the future due to his injury. In almost all cases future lost wages must be calculated by an expert economist who can reduce the amount to “present day value” since the injured employee will be receiving the amount at the time of trial for damages that he will not incur until the future.

Injured seamen can also collect their past and future medical expenses under the Jones Act. In order to collect medical expenses, the injured employee must show that the medical expenses are “reasonable and necessary” and directly related to his injury. To collect medical expenses the injured seaman must present expert medical testimony concerning the need for the medical treatment as well as the actual cost of the medical treatment. Sometimes it is very difficult to collect medical expenses fro procedures or treatment which “may” or “possibly” be necessary in the future. Instead, courts generally limit medical expenses to the amount of medical treatment which will “more likely than not” be needed in the future.

The last category of damages allowed under the Jones Act relate to loss of fringe benefits and other employment-related benefits. If the injured seaman will lose fringe benefits including the value of his 401(k), health benefits, disability benefits or other fringe benefits which were previously provided by his Jones Act employer, then the Jones Act allows the injured seaman to seek money for such damages. The Jones Act even allows the injured seaman to collect money for the value of the meals which he enjoyed while he was working offshore!

Before an injured seaman can even begin to estimate the value of his claim against his employer, he must first understand the types of damages which he can collect under the Jones Act. The Jones Act is a very special statute and usually it provides for a much higher recovery to the injured seaman than a typical workers’ compensation statue would. Seamen generally work in dangerous environments and the Jones Act tries to compensate them if they ever suffer work-related injuries due to their employer’s fault.

Damages under the Jones Act can be complicated and hard to understand. For information about the Jones Act and maritime law, visit JonesActLaw.com.